Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn’t work

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro told American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic that the Cuban communist economic system no longer works.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Castro said in a rare interview.

Goldberg wrote: "This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, 'Never mind'?"

A scholar traveling with Goldberg said his criticism of the system may be an attempt to help his brother Raul enact reforms to cut the nation's lumbering state bureaucracy. Raul has already begun loosening the government's control over the economy.

In the interview, Castro also warned Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to avoid anti-Semitism.

"I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews," Castro said. "I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything."

(Photo: Castro. AP)